change of heart

http://the---pope.tumblr.com/



hey also i feel like i've become a teenager now, i feel okay about that, i feel like i'm doing the right things in life

oh my god i have new stuff to tell you guys but my scanner is broken i want to cry

:(

hi!

hi dudes here is a collage i made. yes i am on holidays now. i am trying to start this thing where i post here. i have so much to tell you. i watched twin peaks and i like sonic youth now and i turned sixteen and i have watched a bunch of weird and cool movies. i'm going to be putting a little less effort in my posts so i can keep this thing running especially when i get back to school because you all know how it is! here is a groovy song that feels relevant:

obviously i am not saying that i am the superstar in this scenario but i really miss you all. anyway i am going away on a road trip today, kind of like the rookie road trip except with my family, in australia, only for a week and with way less cool activities involved. have a good week and talk to you later!

Teenage Diaries (The Closest thing to Honesty)

Last week at school we spent 3 days not doing classes, but this 'retreat' program instead. Basically, our year group just went around to different sessions in different parts of the school and learnt about 'how to cope' with being in Year 11. After learning about going to the library, not plagiarising and where the counsellors office is, the school chaplain did a session with us about what is underneath. It was brief and a bit mixed up and most of the time I was just writing down what he was saying at random intervals as quotes. He says lots of weird analogies and I have always wanted to write them down somewhere. At the end of it he told us to stick our page of notes from the session into a journal and then keep writing in that journal and remember to keep asking ourselves, what is underneath? 

I was feeling pleased with myself, because I had already been keeping a regular journal since November last year. Before that I had a journal of driving across the Nullarbor to Perth on the big family road trip, and one before that of going to Germany with my german class last-last December. But then I heard people saying things about how they weren't going to keep a journal, because it was stupid and a waste of time and gay. And I felt sorry for them. I know how it feels to cringe at what you wrote that seemed so important at the time. I recently found my dream-diary, inspired by Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban during my intensive Harry Potter Phase, when I was 8 and the series hadn't become a nostalgic-post-ironic-tumblrgirl-icon. Anyway I'm pretty sure I made all my dreams up in a desperate attempt to prove myself psychic/a lucid dreamer with many symbolic dream elements. I was going to destroy the diary in embarrassment, but I didn't. I may not like how precocious and wiccan-ish I was back in the day, but it was a stage in the development of my identity (which is still a work in progress) and my journal was an important historical document for that.

And what about all those famous people who have their journals published? When you are famous, your fans are going to desperately want to get to know you and how you came to be you. Greg from Diary of A Wimpy Kid  had it all figured out from the first scene of the movie.

I could think of a whole bunch of cool people who kept a diary (see: List of Diarists on Wikipedia). If you want to be part of that gang, you need to get yourself a journal, like, right now. If you're still a teenager and haven't written a single diary entry, it is possible that you will one day be filled with regret about not being able to remember anything about THE BEST YEARS OF YOUR LIFE. 

There are a whole bunch of Teen Icons who kept a journal about these crucial years, but my absolute favourite journaller is a little less well known, than say, Princess Mia of the Princess Diaries. My favourite ever movie since the middle of last year is called LOL: Laughing Out Loud (2008). It's in French, directed by Lisa Azuelos and is a Coming-Of-Age tale about Lola, a french teenager living and going to school in Paris, who is trying to make it through life and love. She records it all in a small diary, in what I think is the sweetest, most teenagery way possible.
Filled with love hearts, drawings and little souvenirs from her adventures, which go from not-that-cute (condoms, gross), to pretty cute (photo booth photos with her best friends) and cuter-than-cute (Chupa-Chup wrappers from the lollipops she shared with lead singer of the band, talented and beautiful Mael, her love interest). This movie inspired me to keep journalling. Everyone should watch it, especially now as the American remake starring Teen Anti-Icon Miley Cyrus and the frankly uncool Demi Moore is looming. I can already guarantee that the original French LOL will be a thousand times better, so go out and find it at your DVD rental store! Me and my friends watch it religiously, like every sleepover. We've even made our own LOL movie T-shirts. Here are some stills for now:

So, in the spirit of the close-to-pure Honesty of the Teenage Diary, I will share with you some pages from my own. I was going to explain and put each entry into context, but I've decided not to and leave it up to your imagination, more fun that way! Half of these scans are so bad you can barely read them anyway. 

None of these ones are very personal, but I'm working on that. In my current journal, I'm trying to be more reflective:

I think I'll be able to be more and more honest as get I better at journalling. For honesty-motivation, I've been reading these funny little books I borrowed from my school library called 'Monologues for Teens!'. I've chosen some short little sentiments that I feel are pretty honest. They may be manufactured, thought-up, by drama-enthusiast adults intended for teenagers to perform for drama assessment tasks, but I don't think they are any less true.

SO do you have a journal? Do you like writing in it? If not, are you inspired to get your teenage diary on after reading this? Have you shared pictures of your journal anywhere? Please post a link if you do! I would love to see them, and hear all your thoughts in the comments! 

Driving Lessons!

If you watch Disney Channel, you would know that learning to drive is a significant step towards adulthood by the main character. Mostly accurate, except that on TV, driving episodes are usually appropriately during the later seasons of the show. That's So Raven's 'Driving Miss Lazy' was part of Season 4, when Eddie, Raven and Chelsea were all grown up, and, having learnt the moral at the end of the 25 minutes, ready to drive. In real life, my learning to drive episode came a little too quickly. Most of my life, I have been dreading learning how to drive. I put this down to my terrible experiences being forced to play Midnight Club: Street Racing at my friend's house as a child, even though it made me nervous and as a result was constantly flattening private property and elderly civilians in the game. Also, viewing those government road safety ads around the same age was extremely scarring.

After missing out on doing a Learner's Course (which I think is only mandatory in my city/state) several times, I finally booked one for this weekend and ended up enjoying very much. Having several different demographics around the table (bogan teenagers, weird teenagers, cool French immigrants, Uni students who had to get their license again after moving states, Tongan ladies, tradesmen, country musicians and high school drop outs living at home) gave the overall effect of the lessons feel like I had fallen into a Community episode.

When I watch that show, I look at all the characters in the background and wonder what happened in their life that saw them end up going to community college, and their problems and stuff. In shows about normal universities and high schools, I never care about anyone's backstory because it's irrelevant, they had boring and successful lives. I really wanted to know the backstories of all the adults who ended up doing the Learner's Course. I only got to find out one, which belonged to a 20-something woman from a rural area, who had put off learning to drive because she had been in a car crash with her then-boyfriend and broken a rib. Her boyfriend actually died later, after they had been broken up for a while, because, to quote her: 'He never learnt his lesson and died in a car crash'. The bit about him 'not learning his lesson' shocked me.

The instructor reminded me very much of that secretarial kind of lady working at abortion clinics, which made me think of Juno McGuff, who she kind of looked like, but older and dressed more 2000s-ish. Her backstory was that she had been working at the Road Ready organisation for 5 years, and last year her best friend died in a motorcycle accident at the coast. She reminded me more of Juno after that, because she was very brave about telling everyone her story.

I passed the Knowledge test and can pick up my license next week (my braces will be off by then!). We had to watch more harrowing Road Safety government ads at the course that made me feel queasy, but I am still looking forward to practising driving, doing lessons and going on a  Crossroads-esque road trip with my friends, hopefully without dying.

I am very scared to die, but excited to be growing up, Disney-Channel-style. I'm sure my next driving episode in my life will be just like Driving Lessons, yes that movie with Rupert Grint, yes I watched it because it had Rupert Grint, but it's a very good movie in it's own right.

And now, some songs about driving that I'm sure I will be able to listen to behind the wheel on very low volume after lots and lots of practise of not getting distracted from the road.

nb: i wrote this post last weekend. i've just been doing maths homework since then. 

I Feel Sick! (Back to School Blues)

(pretty obscure picture, I realise, but keep reading and it will make more sense)

First day back at school today and I am not feeling the back to school vibes a la Rookie Issue 1. I thought it was going to be all cute skirts, socks and books, with the occasional, nonchalant, freshly polished red apple. Instead, my new senior uniform skirt was too long, and the jumper was too small, my ponytail gave me a headache and my apple was really starchy. I passionately hate starchy apples and I already miss my well-grown into school dress that was part of the uniform for years 7 to 10. Each of my classes went by too rapidly so I could never really focus on what was going on, and I thought it took me 20 minutes to do my maths homework this afternoon but it actually took me an hour! Back to School/First Day of School Vibes are my most favourite vibe of all but today I feel like they are a big, idealistic lie inspired by the musical numbers from Grease and further aided by getting-ready-for-school Officeworks sales, as well as my dream to live the preppy lifestyle. 

Today, I did not goss about my holiday happenings with my gurls. It was just awkward because I didn't see a lot of my friends over the break at all, so we all just talked about the Harry Potter exhibition that nearly everyone drove down to Sydney to visit. And all my pens from Officeworks make my handwriting look gross (it's probably weird anyway because of having no need to write for a solid 8 weeks). Anyway gives me anxiety. And the Preppy Lifestyle Dream is SO FAR OUT OF REACH.

The only thing that is going to keep me going are Crystallised Ginger Snack Packs and a burgeoning Bob Dylan phase (see above!), which is basically me listening to Don't Think Twice, It's Alright on repeat (but like I said, it's burgeoning. I plan to be like this girl - best cover ever-  below, except with worse teeth from all the ginger snack packs)

What do you do to keep yourself motivated and inspired about school? Since the Back To School vibes I   used to love are clearly redundant here, I am in need of some friendly advice.

Pop Culture Awareness #2: The Ramones

Welcome to Part Two in my adventure of becoming a cooler teenager through deliberate exposure to popular culture and media. If you missed out on the first instalment and want to know what Pop Culture Awareness is all about, please click here.

After educating myself about a much-loved and influential teen movie last time, I thought I would switch it up and become culturally aware about a much-loved and influential band for teens. A Brief Illustrated Summary of the band, THE RAMONES:

The first time I heard about The Ramones was during Avril Lavigne's 2006-8 comeback, in which she went for the pink and platinum blonde look (devastating for me, as the old Avril's song Sk8er Boi was something of a Hymn for my tomboy, 7 year old self). She released the song Girlfriend and was promptly sued by the Rubinoos, who claimed she stole their song 'I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend' and I think Avril said that they were stupid and The Ramones had made a similar song as well and they weren't suing. The report, which was on the radio, closed with excerpts from the three songs, one after the other.

I forgot all about the Ramones until the end of last year when Rookie started and then I found 8tracks through that, and started listening to a few mixes that people made. In many of the mixes I listened to, The Ramones were almost always featured. I wasn't that interested, though. I was heavily into The Velvet Underground (I still am pretty into them), who I had also learned about through 8tracks.

On Monday, however,  I went shopping with my little sister and we spent about an hour in JB Hi-Fi (best store ever) trying to decide on some DVDs  to buy. It was there that  I came across a Best-Of Ramones CD for $8.99 in the letter 'R' section. I bought it because it was cheap and because I knew they were somewhat cool and thought I should see what all the fuss was about.

I imported it into my iTunes when I got home but decided not to listen to them until I had some time to listen to all 30 songs in one go, completely focussed and see what impact it had on me. I thought today might be a good day to do it. I sat down with a paper and pen to take some notes and these are the results.

That was the most fun I have ever had making notes. These were my favourite songs from the compilation:

1. Teenage Lobotomy

2. Sheena is a Punk Rocker

3. Rockaway Beach

4. I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend

5. Mama's Boy

6. We're A Happy Family

7. Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

8. Needles and Pins

9. Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?

10. Beat on the Brat

But I thought that before I started telling you what I thought about their music, I should learn a little about the actual band. I didn't do too much intensive research, just Wikipedia and the MTV website. What I found the most engaging was a documentary on youtube called The End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones (2003). It's pretty long (with 11 ten minute parts) but I really recommend you watch it when you are super bored and have some time on your hands, instead of eating peanut butter out of a jar, which is what I usually do. It's really nice to learn about all the members of the Ramones especially, and finding out what sort of people they were. 

I am going to list now where I think the band's appeal to teenagers (coolness) comes from:

1. They were the first ever Punk band - These guys redefined Rock and Roll! When the band first came about, in the mid-seventies, all the other bands were being totally weird and were being very self-indulgent. Lots of abstract stuff and super long guitar solos. The Ramones were original and did stuff that was completely different. Teenagers today are obsessed with being original and different. Unless they are doing an homage to the Ramones, derrr. (silent H, french pronunciation everybody)

2. They made up their pseudonyms with the same last names, like a family. I really want to do that with my friends. So hardcore.

3. The band had a lot of imagery going on. They had a neat logo which fans tattooed onto their upper arms, or if they weren't down for that, wore the cool band T-shirts instead. The Ramones also had their own particular dress-style (leather jackets, T-shirts, jeans etc) which is a bit of a classic look now. 

4. The band was totally rebel (see #1). Any Ramones song is like an anthem for Teenage Rebellion. 

5. They were one of the most influential bands ever. It might be cool to listen to punk, punk rock and post-punk bands today like Green Day and Nirvana and Bleeding Knees Club (listen to this one from them, I think they sound super Ramone-ish but a little cuter and surfier). BUT it is much cooler to listen to the band that THEY thought was cool (the Ramones, man). 

7. The band isn't around anymore, which makes listening to them nostalgic, and we all know how much teenagers like to be nostalgic from before they were born. 

Rating of The Ramones as a Pop Culture Reference:

The thing with movies is that they are pretending to be life. So it's much easier to compare and relate movies to life. Music is about life, but it doesn't pretend to be life. What music does pretend to be is maybe what your feelings sound like. I'm just letting you know this so you don't try and pop culture reference the Ramones like you might pop culture reference the movie Clueless. 

Referencing the Ramones is actually very tricky and my respect goes out to those people who can successfully reference them. Non-pretentious Ramones-T Shirt-wearers, Ramones-influenced bands, and music buffs who can tell you if a band was influenced by the Ramones or not fall into the successful category. Unsuccessful referencers of the Ramones include pretentious music snobs, pretentious music snobs who start arguments on youtube about how the Ramones are the be-all and end-all, and people who wear Ramones T-shirts but actually think that the Ramones  are a hipster clothing brand. But DESPITE the difficulty to give justice to the Ramones when trying to reference them, the band's influence in music and Pop Culture in general, the rating of the Ramones as a Pop Culture Reference has evened out to a solid 11/15.

Is anyone here a Ramones fan? If so, please let us know in the comments how you came across the band, whether you can pull off the Ramones T shirt with out looking pretentious and any fun facts about the band that you would like to put out there! After doing this post I feel that I am well on the way to the beginning of a Ramones phase. 

I was also wondering if anyone had any requests for Pop Culture Awareness. If you keep hearing about a certain movie/band/person on the cool teenage haunts of the internet, please let me know about it in the comments and I might do it for PCA #3! Then you can decide for yourself whether the movie/CD/entire collected works is worth spending your pocket money on.